Whacko tracerts.... Terra ?

[Dean B]

Terra,
Had real problems connecting to aota.net tonight so I switched to my alternative isp. Much better so I ran tracert and found myself very confused. Terra, can you explain the different routes each isp take ?

This tracert comes from my regular isp -
Tracing route to aota.net [205.244.185.207]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 153 ms 134 ms 121 ms cordelia-nmc.cableol.net [194.168.10.242]
2 132 ms 106 ms 123 ms pleiades-lut-E0-0.router.cableol.net [194.168.10
.250]
3 184 ms 237 ms 231 ms mae-east-gw1-ATM0-0.router.cableol.net [194.168.
254.8]
4 226 ms 183 ms 190 ms 902.Hssi8-0.GW2.TCO1.ALTER.NET [157.130.33.57]
5 193 ms 198 ms 219 ms 117.ATM2-0.XR1.TCO1.ALTER.NET [146.188.161.114]

6 221 ms 243 ms 207 ms 193.ATM11-0-0.BR1.TCO1.ALTER.NET [146.188.160.73
]
7 226 ms 251 ms 222 ms Sprint-TCO1-gw.ALTER.NET [137.39.103.18]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * 314 ms 285 ms aota.net [205.244.185.207]

Trace complete.

This one came from my alternative isp -
Tracing route to aota.net [205.244.185.207]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 121 ms 107 ms 107 ms 212.56.109.3
2 113 ms 109 ms 112 ms gw.free-online.net [212.56.108.1]
3 269 ms 123 ms 119 ms core-gw.plus.net.uk [195.166.128.1]
4 123 ms 113 ms 110 ms 62.172.13.17
5 133 ms 128 ms 140 ms access1-h-0-0-15.manchester.bt.net [62.172.14.19
3]
6 159 ms 113 ms 157 ms core1-fe-1-1.manchester.bt.net [195.99.120.81]
7 161 ms 219 ms 268 ms core1-h-0-0-1.telehouse.bt.net [195.99.120.97]
8 145 ms 167 ms 147 ms transit2-fe-1-0.telehouse.bt.net [195.99.120.4]

9 226 ms 224 ms 218 ms bordercore4-hssi0-0-0.WestOrange.cw.net [166.48.
11.249]
10 272 ms 230 ms 228 ms core4.WestOrange.cw.net [204.70.4.77]
11 248 ms 236 ms 221 ms somerouter.sprintlink.net [206.157.77.106]
12 265 ms 275 ms 278 ms sl-bb10-pen-1-2.sprintlink.net [144.232.5.45]
13 309 ms 307 ms 288 ms sl-bb12-pen-9-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.5.153]
14 253 ms 250 ms 263 ms sl-bb10-rly-5-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.8.153]
15 241 ms 249 ms 227 ms sl-bb2-dc-4-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.232.7.142]
16 246 ms 210 ms 213 ms sl-gw3-dc-0-0.sprintlink.net [144.228.20.12]
17 280 ms 289 ms 277 ms sl-mbs-1-0-T1.sprintlink.net [144.228.122.14]
18 364 ms 353 ms 352 ms aota.net [205.244.185.207]

Trace complete.

What's going on here Andrew ?

Dean.

[Terra]

Routing is just plain Voodoo and Black Magic conjured by internet wizards...

The first trace clearly shows a major glitch with one of the Alter.net --> SprintLink switching points... 8 and 9 hop looks congested or struggling then finally BGP's past the problem and drops directly to aota.net... I would have to say that the first trace should not even exist, as 8 and 9 then directly to us is Bogus...

The second trace route looks clean and even flowing... Without any glitches along the way...

It is little know, that if you are transferring a 100K image, that image is broken up into smaller packets, of say 1k... Those packets are sent out from the server and any one of those packets can take a different route to land at your machine... Your TCP stack is responsible for reassembly and delivering it to your application layer (browser) properly...

Most of the time, all packets follow the same path, sometimes they don't... Just all depends on the Sun/Moon/Stars alignments...

And this concludes TraceRoute 101...

--
Terra
sysAdmin
FutureQuest